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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Whoops, Whiteout!

For the last two years I have been using one of those super absorbent dish drying pads for my pots and pans that don't fit in my dishwasher. I typically had it out all the time, unless company was coming over and I would put it away because its not the most attractive of kitchen accessories.

Finally, after two years I decided to chuck them and just dry as I go because I got into the bad habit of stacking pants as high as they could possible go. For real, I should have been an engineer because I can build the Leaning Tower of Pisa out of this stuff. One pin drop could send the whole thing toppling down at any moment.

Here is where the problem comes in. Maybe I am crazy, but do you see where the granite is lighter in the pics below from where the pad was??

Ummm....what?!? I have tried cleaning it with soap and water and Fantastic (all surfaces) and it wont go away. I am praying that its not bleached out, but I just cant figure out how to fix this.

Has anyone out there had this happen?

I Googled it and I am going to head to Home Depot for some granite cleaner this weekend, but I can't really find example photos online to make sure I am buying the right product.

Its really weird actually, when the area is wet it blends in with the rest of the granite. Its just that when it dries it has a white-ish cast to it. Can you get hard water stains (like on a shower head) on granite??

Geezy-pete! This has my OCD raging and all I see in the stain. Joey on the other hand keeps saying, "What are you even talking about, I don't see anything."

Granite is a porous and natural (imperfect) material... therefore, it seems that the seal/coating could have been degraded, the factory finish (buffing/smoothing) has been degraded, or there has actually been minor dissolving of some of the mineral content in the stone due to the water contact -- this could change the way light reflects from that area relative to the surrounding areas. It's not a "stain" as best as I can tell, so this isn't something you can clean off. You might want to contact the manufacturer of the slab to see if it could be a sealant issue and you could either reseal or rebuff the surface, but you might have to do the entire slab for consistency or you'll still have color/tone variation.